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here is Sweet Afton. I was fortunate enough to talk
with Sean and Chris after a show and ask them about
this song. They said it is tuned to DADGAD and capoed
on the 2nd fret. So here goes...........
Capo 2 "SWEET AFTON"
{easier fingerings, version}
D A G Bm Em F#m D A G Bm F#m
D--0---0---0---0----0-----0-------|--0--0--0---0---0--------------High
A--0---0---0---0----0-----0-------|--0--0--0---0---0--------------
G--2---6---4---7----0-----2-------|--2--2--0---4---2--------------
D--0---7---5---9----2-----4-------|--0--2--0---4---4--------------
A--0---7---5---9----2-----4-------|--0--0--5---2---4--------------
D--0---7---5---9----2-----4-------|--0--x--5---x---x--------------Low
Verse 1:
D A G D
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Bm A G D
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
D A G D
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Bm A G D
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Filler:
D A G D Bm A G D
Verse 2:
D A G D
Thou stock dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen,
Bm A G D
All Ye wild whistly blackbirds in yon thorny den,
D A G D
Thou green crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
Bm A G D
O'I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair.
Chorus:
Bm A G D
O'How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills,
Em G A
Far mark'd with the courses of clear winding rills;
F#m G F#m Bm A G D
There daily I wander as noon rises high,... oooh,
Em G A
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
Filler (violin) D A G D Bm A G D
Verse 3:
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where, wild in the woodlands, the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild evening sweeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
Chorus:
Bm A G D
O'Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
Em G A
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
F#m G F#m Bm ...D
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
Em G A
As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave.
Verse 4:
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dreams.
There it is! I hope it easy enough to follow and play. What a pretty song.
This is a Robert Burns poem that Chris put music to, sure sounds nice.
Give me some feedback as to what you thought.
Thanks
Scott
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No Picture
by fires light Rhythm Player |
#1 by by fires light she cried at Aug 22, 1997 at 10:55 PM EST |
| A beautiful song, but JessiL, Mary is dead. I saw them live and Chris Thile was laughing about it cos he wasnt too sure when he wrote the melody, hence why he wrote it in a major key. Burns is contrasting the death of Mary with the flow of the river being a metaphor for the passage of time. | |
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bethan Average |
#2 by bethan jones at Jan 2, 2003 at 8:50 AM EST |
| What the heck? Nickle Creek translated this song to music? I have music books dated back to the 1940's that I inherited from my grandmother when she passed away and Sweet Afton is in a few of them. I always thought they were just replaying a song popular over half a century ago. | |
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Dominic Badass |
#3 by Dominic Smith at Oct 4, 2007 at 5:37 AM EST |
| I absolutley love Robert Burns, he was a poet back a long time ago in Scotland and his claim to fame was that he wrote in Scootish dialect. His poems are all beautiful, a little difficult to read sometimes, but all of them have gorgeous images and sweet afton is now exception, Nickle Creek did a great job translating it to music. | |
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No Picture
Kubota35 Professional |
#4 by Kubota35 at Oct 7, 2007 at 3:44 PM EST |
| "Sweet Afton" is a poem by Robert Burns, who often writes about nature and entangles it very beautifully with a love story. This is a prime and wonderful example of his writings. To me, Afton (the river) is like life, with bends and surrounded by its high and low parts of the landscape (being the ups and downs of life). Mary is the love part of the story, sleeping in her elegance as life passes by, with her feet barely in life itself. And as she is dreaming, the stream only murmurs so she can be imaginative in what she hopes her life can be like. | |
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Garland Rhythm Player |
#5 by Garland Cross at Oct 12, 2007 at 1:53 PM EST |
| Amazingly beautiful and sweet. I hadn't heard of Robert Burns before this. Seems beautiful how an American Bluegrass band plays a poem of a Scottish poet. Also a nice detail about the song being in major while it's about the death of Mary, does make it allot more sweet. | |